(Auteur) This research presents an operable zoning approach for phased evacuations adapted to disasters with spatio-temporal randomness. As a criterion for prioritizing evacuation order, evacuation risk is formulated by taking into consideration the estimated residual evacuation horizon associated with the characteristics of the disaster, the estimated time-dependent capacities of outbound lanes related to network supply, and the time-dependent evacuation demand of an evacuation unit. The modeling of the subzone determined for phased evacuation is based on rescue demand, the characteristics of the disaster, and network supply, and is labeled as a high-risk evacuation zone (HEZ). The range of HEZ features a time-evolving pattern in accordance with phased evacuation. The zone partition paradigm can be seamlessly applied to different types of disasters, especially those with high spatio-temporal randomness. It also provides a generalizable approach for subzone partitioning in phased evacuation by minimizing evacuation risk. The proposed approach is examined on numerical experiments through the road network of Xi’an, China, the results of which highlight its strength in increased adaptability to the dynamics of disaster impact and improved performance in evacuation operation.

(Auteur) The spatial hierarchy of part-whole relationships is an essential characteristic of the platial world. Constructing spatial hierarchies of places is valuable in association analysis and qualitative spatial reasoning. The emergence of large amounts of geotagged user-generated content provides strong support for modelling places. However, the vague nature of places and the complex spatial relationships among places make it intractable to understand and represent the hierarchies among places. In this paper, we introduce a fuzzy formal concept analysis-based approach to uncovering the spatial hierarchies among vague places. Each place is represented as a concept that consists of its extent and its intent. Based on the place concepts, the spatial hierarchies are generated and expressed as a graph that is easy to comprehend and contains abundant information on spatial relations. We also demonstrate the rationality of our result by comparing it with the result of a questionnaire survey.

(Auteur) Understanding the spatial scale sensitivity of cellular automata is crucial for improving the accuracy of land use change simulation. We propose a framework based on a response surface method to comprehensively explore spatial scale sensitivity of the cellular automata Markov chain (CA-Markov) model, and present a hybrid evaluation model for expressing simulation accuracy that merges the strengths of the Kappa coefficient and of Contagion index. Three Landsat-Thematic Mapper remote sensing images of Wuhan in 1987, 1996, and 2005 were used to extract land use information. The results demonstrate that the spatial scale sensitivity of the CA-Markov model resulting from individual components and their combinations are both worthy of attention. The utility of our proposed hybrid evaluation model and response surface method to investigate the sensitivity has proven to be more accurate than the single Kappa coefficient method and more efficient than traditional methods. The findings also show that the CA-Markov model is more sensitive to neighborhood size than to cell size or neighborhood type considering individual component effects. Particularly, the bilateral and trilateral interactions between neighborhood and cell size result in a more remarkable scale effect than that of a single cell size.

(Auteur) The objective of this paper is to investigate uncertainties surrounding relationships between spatial autocorrelation (SA) and the modifiable areal unit problem (MAUP) with an extensive simulation experiment. Especially, this paper aims to explore how differently the MAUP behaves for the level of SA focusing on how the initial level of SA at the finest spatial scale makes a significant difference to the MAUP effects on the sample statistics such as means, variances, and Moran coefficients (MCs). The simulation experiment utilizes a random spatial aggregation (RSA) procedure and adopts Moran spatial eigenvectors to simulate different SA levels. The main findings are as follows. First, there are no substantive MAUP effects for means. However, the initial level of SA plays a role for the zoning effect, especially when extreme positive SA is present. Second, there is a clear and strong scale effect for the variances. However, the initial SA level plays a non-negligible role in how this scale effect deploys. Third, the initial SA level plays a crucial role in the nature and extent of the MAUP effects on MCs. A regression analysis confirms that the initial SA level makes a substantial difference to the variability of the MAUP effects.

(Auteur) The density-based spatial clustering of applications with noise (DBSCAN) method is often used to identify individual activity clusters (i.e., zones) using digital footprints captured from social networks. However, DBSCAN is sensitive to the two parameters, eps and minpts. This paper introduces an improved density-based clustering algorithm, Multi-Scaled DBSCAN (M-DBSCAN), to mitigate the detection uncertainty of clusters produced by DBSCAN at different scales of density and cluster size. M-DBSCAN iteratively calibrates suitable local eps and minpts values instead of using one global parameter setting as DBSCAN for detecting clusters of varying densities, and proves to be effective for detecting potential activity zones. Besides, M-DBSCAN can significantly reduce the noise ratio by identifying all points capturing the activities performed in each zone. Using the historic geo-tagged tweets of users in Washington, D.C. and in Madison, Wisconsin, the results reveal that: 1) M-DBSCAN can capture dispersed clusters with low density of points, and therefore detecting more activity zones for each user; 2) A value of 40 m or higher should be used for eps to reduce the possibility of collapsing distinctive activity zones; and 3) A value between 200 and 300 m is recommended for eps while using DBSCAN for detecting activity zones.